Plaintiff
Mohamed M. Nasser commenced this action in this Court on May
16, 2016, complaining of an excessive delay in the processing
of his application for naturalization by the Defendant
federal government agencies and officials. Under a provision
of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”),
if the Government fails to make a determination on such an
application “before the end of the 120-day period after
the date on which [a statutorily mandated] examination is
conducted . . ., the applicant may apply to the United States
district court for the district in which the applicant
resides for a hearing on the matter, ” and the court
may then “either determine the matter or remand the
matter, with appropriate instructions, ” for
determination by the appropriate agency. 8 U.S.C. §
1447(b). Plaintiff alleges that this statutory 120-day
deadline has passed without a decision on his application,
and he requests that the Court conduct a hearing, review his
application for naturalization, and grant him a judgment
declaring that he is entitled to U.S. citizenship.

By
motion filed on August 9, 2016, Defendants now request that
this matter be remanded to the U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (“USCIS”) so that this
agency may adjudicate Plaintiff's application and
determine his eligibility for citizenship. In support of this
motion, Defendants state that the USCIS is now prepared to
review and resolve Plaintiff's application, with or
without certain evidence that the agency has requested but
Plaintiff has not yet provided, and they contend that the
proper course under these circumstances is to remand to the
agency, USCIS, that is charged with the responsibility to
decide applications for naturalization in the first instance.
Plaintiff filed a response in opposition to this motion on
September 9, 2016, asserting that the Court has both the
authority and the obligation to determine his eligibility for
U.S. citizenship where, in his view, the issue upon which his
application turns has effectively been resolved in his favor,
and where Defendants should be deemed to have forfeited their
opportunity to adjudicate his application by virtue of their
allegedly egregious conduct to date in processing this
application.

Defendants'
motion has been fully briefed by the parties. Having reviewed
the parties' briefs and the record as a whole, the Court
finds that the relevant facts, allegations and legal
arguments are adequately presented in these written
submissions, and that oral argument would not significantly
aid the decisional process. Accordingly, the Court will
decide Defendants' motion “on the briefs.”
See Local Rule 7.1(f)(2), U.S. District Court,
Eastern District of Michigan. This opinion and order sets
forth the Court's rulings on this motion.

II.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff
Mohamed M. Nasser is a citizen of Yemen who was admitted to
the United States as a lawful permanent resident
(“LPR”) in May of 1992. His LPR status is based
on an approved immediate relative visa petition that was
filed on his behalf by Nagi El-Zokari, the husband of
Plaintiff's alleged biological mother, Fatima Mansoor
Mohamad El-Zokari.

In
February of 2013, as Plaintiff was returning to the United
States from a visit to Yemen, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (“ICE”) served him with a Notice to
Appear (“NTA”) for removal proceedings in
immigration court. ICE alleged in this NTA that at some point
after Plaintiff obtained LPR status, Nagi El-Zokari denied
any relationship to Plaintiff and instead claimed that he had
“helped smuggle [Plaintiff] into the United States as a
favor to a friend.” (Complaint, Ex. D, NTA.) In light
of this information, ICE asserted that Plaintiff had secured
LPR status through fraud or misrepresentation, and it
directed Plaintiff to appear before an immigration court and
show why he should not be removed from the United States
based on the charges set forth in the NTA. (See id.)
Before this hearing could be held, however, ICE cancelled the
NTA on August 25, 2013 as improvidently issued, and the
agency has never sought to reinstate the charges against
Plaintiff or otherwise pursue this matter further.

On July
1, 2014, Plaintiff filed an application for naturalization
with the USCIS. In an initial interview conducted on December
16, 2014, Plaintiff demonstrated insufficient proficiency in
written English, but he passed this and all other pertinent
tests during a second interview held on February 17, 2015.
Nonetheless, he was told that a decision could not yet be
made on his application. (See Complaint, Ex. A,
2/17/2015 Naturalization Interview Results.)

By
letter dated March 13, 2015, the USCIS requested that
Plaintiff submit further evidence in support of his
application. In particular, Plaintiff was asked to submit the
results of DNA blood tests “[i]n order to demonstrate
the existence of a biological relationship between [him] and
[his] mother, Fatima Mansoor Mohamed El-Zokari.”
(Complaint, Ex. D, Form N-14, Request for Evidence.) In
response to this request, Plaintiff's attorney asserted
in a March 24, 2015 letter that the evidence sought by the
USCIS was “not pertinent, nor relevant for
[Plaintiff's] naturalization process, ” and he
added that “[a]s a practical matter, DNA testing would
not be possible at this time” because the U.S. embassy
in Sana'a, Yemen was closed. (Complaint, Ex. D, 3/24/2015
Letter at 1.) Plaintiff's attorney further stated that
Plaintiff's LPR status was “re-validated in
2013” by virtue of ICE's cancellation of the NTA
issued at that time. (Id. at 1-2.) Accordingly,
Plaintiff's attorney asked the USCIS to withdraw its
request for evidence and schedule Plaintiff for an oath
ceremony. (See Id. at 1.)

After
sending this March 2015 letter, Plaintiff's attorney
attempted on a number of occasions to communicate with the
USCIS regarding the status of Plaintiff's application for
naturalization.[1] When over a year went by without a
decision on Plaintiff's application, Plaintiff brought
suit in this Court on May 16, 2016, seeking the adjudication
of his application for naturalization in this judicial forum
or, in the alternative, an order directing the USCIS to
adjudicate this application and schedule Plaintiff for an
oath ceremony within thirty days or by a date set by the
Court.

III.
ANALYSIS

A. The
Statutory Framework ...

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